S
am Cooke’s A Change Is Gonna
Come was one of the most
powerful and moving songs to
emerge from the American Civil Rights
era. But when Cooke recorded his magnum
opus in 1964, he could hardly have imagined
that more than 55 years later the United
States of America would be emerging from
the presidency of a man who appeared to
defend white supremacists. Or that the
country’s oldest ally, Britain, which Cooke
happily toured with Little Richard in 1962,
had as its prime minister an ex-newspaper
columnist who’d traded in racially charged
comments. Were Cooke alive today, as a
man who had counted Malcolm X and
Cassius Clay as friends, he could have been
forgiven for reworking those famous lyrics
to something more disillusioned and angry.
While Cooke would have viewed the
course of history with a rueful eye, he might
also have wondered about the state of his
own music legacy beyond that strangelyeerie, totally uncharacteristic song. Like
all black performers of his generation, he’d
faced degrading racial treatment while out
on the road, to which he’d reacted
with a mixture of dignifi ed forbearance,
contempt and sometimes outright anger.
However, as a shrewd businessman, Cooke
knew where the money lay, and cut a lot of
material shaped to sell to white audiences,
whether dance-oriented youngsters or
middle-of-the-road older buyers. As a result,
while he is widely accepted as the fi rst
star of soul – because the bulk of his work
tended to be light and poppy – and because
his career was ended by his early death in
1964, he’s often been unjustly reduced to a
staging post fi gure en route to the gutsier
soul artists that followed.
But this is to overlook Sam Cooke’s unique
qualities. It’s true that he was a between-
the-eras man. Vocally, he was a skilled
technician, one of the few soul singers who
could return to the Great AmericanSam Cooke was soul music’s fi rst star
performer. In his 90th anniversary year,
we look back at a collection of his early hits.JESS
RA
ND/
MIC
HAE
L^ OC
HS^ A
RCH
IVES
/GE
TTY
IMA
GES
SAM
COOKE
HIT KIT1959 • KEEN
Only Sixteen (Cooke)
All Of My Life (Adler/Alpert)
Everybody Loves To Cha Cha Cha (Cooke)
Blue Moon (Rodgers/Hart)
Win Your Love For Me (Cooke)
Lonely Island (Ahbez)You Send Me (Cooke)
Love You Most Of All (Cooke)
(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons
(Best/Watson)
Little Things You Do (Alexander)
Let’s Go Steady Again (Alexander)
You Were Made For Me (Cooke)Hit Kit